Monday, December 17, 2012

The mere anticipation of an interaction with a woman can impair men's cognitiveperformance.

Archives of sexual behavior, (2012) 41:1051-1056

Abstract

Recent research suggests that heterosexual men's (but not
heterosexual women's) cognitive performance is impaired after an
interaction with someone of the opposite sex (Karremans et al., 2009).
These findings have been interpreted in terms of the cognitive costs of
trying to make a good impression during the interaction. In everyday
life, people frequently engage in pseudo-interactions with women (e.g.,
through the phone or the internet) or anticipate interacting with a
woman later on. The goal of the present research was to investigate if
men's cognitive performance decreased in these types of situations, in
which men have little to no opportunity to impress her and, moreover,
have little to no information about the mate value of their interaction
partner. Two studies demonstrated that men's (but not women's) cognitive
performance declined if they were led to believe that they interacted
with a woman via a computer (Study 1) or even if they merely anticipated
an interaction with a woman (Study 2). Together, these results suggest
that an actual interaction is not a necessary prerequisite for the
cognitive impairment effect to occur. Moreover, these effects occur even
if men do not get information about the woman's attractiveness. This
latter finding is discussed in terms of error management theory

In the next phase of the study (giving them another publication) will they measure blood flow to see if the common impression that men don't have enough blood to fill the big head and the little head at the same time is the cause of this phenomenon?

I don't quite understand why everyone's getting so upset. These findings might be a truism, but they still need to be researched. Also I find it very interesting that this phenomenon does not apply to women.Only if we can prove that such phenomenons exist can we go on to find out why they exist and so on... Isn't that what science is about?

In everyday life, people frequently engage in pseudo-interactions with women (e.g., through the phone or the internet) or anticipate interacting with a woman later on.

Two sentences earlier, we were talking about men and women; now we're talking about how "people" interact with women.

Then again, it could be just bad translation, if it's a Dutch study. The later bit about "the mate value of their interaction partner" would seem to support that, except that social scientists really do talk like that, even when fluent in English.

I have to say, I'm quite disappointed to hear people complaining about 'wasting' funding on a study to examine, well, anything that hasn't already been debunked or tested and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Questioning and testing assumptions is a big part of what scientists are supposed to do.

Actually, I think they're stumbling around on the tip of a metaphorical iceberg. Any bets on what sort of relationship they'll find between their subjects' biases/assumptions about women, and their reaction to the thought of an upcoming interaction? I'm guessing there's a difference between groups of people who think of women as 'people' and groups of those who manage to think of them exclusively as 'women'...

Welcome to my whining!

This blog is entirely for entertainment purposes. All posts about patients may be fictional, or be my experience, or were submitted by a reader, or any combination of the above. Factual statements may or may not be accurate.

Singing Foo!

Have Dr. Grumpy delivered automatically to your Kindle for only 99 cents a month! Sign up here!

Dr. Grumpy is for hire! Need an article written (humorous, medical, or otherwise) or want to commission a genuine Grumpy piece for your newspaper/magazine/toilet paper roll? Contact me to discuss subjects. You can reach me at the email address below, or through my Linked-In profile.

Note: I do not answer medical questions. If you are having a medical issue, see your own doctor. For all you know I'm really a Mongolian yak herder and have no medical training at all except in issues regarding the care and feeding of Mongolian yaks.